Overbuilt and oversold to investors, Florida’s Fort Lauderdale area market hit rock bottom after the crash. Now, it’s rebounding quickly, with only 100 residential units on the market, thanks to smart all-cash foreign investment, CNBC reported (see video above).

Steven Gietl, an Austrian investor made a 30 percent profit on a 62-unit Fort Lauderdale condominium conversion nine months after buying the property in a short sale. “We took this opportunity because where else can you buy a building which is built, rented out, with basically no development risk? South Florida is a great place to do that.”

Gietl attributes the swift sales to the discount he got on the property in the first place: “We bought at a significant discount,” he said, “and could still sell below replacement cost to our investors.”

One Canadian couple that recently bought, termed South Florida a “candy land” because of the currency exchange rates and high rate of foreclosures. [CNBC]